


Against Type

by mightbeanasshole



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Gender or Sex Swap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 21:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2888510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightbeanasshole/pseuds/mightbeanasshole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(A genderbent Raywood college AU.) A sought-after graduate actor and a single-minded undergrad set designer shouldn't have a thing in common. Yet their paths kept crossing--and Ryan couldn't seem to ignore it. After four years in the same university theatre community with the same faces and the same frustrations, why is it that Ray suddenly dominated her thoughts?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against Type

**casting against type,** n.

Casting an actor in a role that contradicts the actor’s public persona or that is unlike roles with which the actor has commonly been associated. Compare: typecast.

* * *

 

The UCF Theatre Department was an incestuous community.

Ryan made the decision early on not to date anyone in the department because of it.

Besides: she’d seen freshman year how spectacularly a situation could blow up in your face if you dated someone within the department. Two senior BFAs had dated for three years and broken up horribly over the summer semester. Come fall, they were cast opposite one another as romantic leads in _Misalliance_.

It had been miserable for them and for everyone involved.

Probably for the audience too, Ryan thought.

No--she’d thought--better to keep a professional distance from the people within the department.

And true to her word, she had. During her four years as a BFA acting student, she earned a reputation for hard work and reliability, focusing on life as an actor more than on her social life.

Stage managers liked Ryan because she was on time. Directors liked her because she remembered her blocking the first time, every time.

Costume designers liked her because of the delicate way she treated their garments (and, they admitted out of her earshot, because her unusual proportions were fun to design for--six feet tall with wide shoulders and a knockout figure).

And the technical theatre crew liked her because she was infinitely respectful of the hard work they put into every set design, every lighting scheme, every single prop they created.

On stage, Ryan never got the best roles. Her height prevented her from being cast as an ingenue. But there were plenty of bit parts for tall women, and she ended up with fun characters who got some of the best lines.

And she became a legend when she auditioned and landed the titular role in Tantalus her senior year. She’d blown audiences out of the water with her take on the male character. People talked about her performance--which had become almost legendary--even after she graduated.

Ryan hadn’t noticed and no one bothered to tell her. She was just happy for the experience.

\---

There had been dates in Orlando, but never anything she’d have called a romance.

Ryan didn’t lose her virginity until sophomore year, and even after that lovers were few and far between.

The closest thing Ryan had to romance was one lovely summer with an astronomy major--the girl’s first foray into dating another girl. They’d spent weekends alone at the girl’s family lakehouse, Ryan’s freckles multiplying in the same shade as her long chestnut hair. They’d talk astronomy at night, the girl repeating almost nightly that she thought Ryan ought to drop out of theatre to pursue science.

“You’re too smart to be an actor,” the girl would insist. Ryan had tried not to be offended at the implication, to just take the compliment and move on.

At the end of the sun-drenched semester, the girl told Ryan she wanted to date men again.

It broke Ryan’s heart, but it wasn’t too surprising. Their chemistry had dissolved by July, and by August they felt less like girlfriends and more like roommates.

After that, Ryan tried her hand at grad students--men and women who had more of a feel, maybe, for who they were and what they wanted.

But eventually, trying to date older suitors was frustrating too. Ryan tired quickly of explaining what pansexuality was to straight guys, of pandering to men shorter than her who didn’t want her to wear high heels, of lesbians who didn’t trust her because she’d dated men, too.

She called it a wash and concentrated on her career.

\---

After graduation, she moved to LA.

Ryan found moderate success there: a recurring role on “24” as a background worker at CTU. A few lines here and there. It was a great paycheck, but unfortunately it didn’t lead to another recurring role.

As it had been so often in her life, Ryan’s height was a problem.

“Casting agents keep saying I’m ‘too butch,’” she complained one night after a particularly grueling audition. “Three callbacks in and they say ‘we love your work, we love your attitude, we love what you bring to the table--but you’re just too butch for the Cassandra we have in mind.”

Jack had scoffed on the other end of the phone.

“Right, mermaid hair down to your waist, an hourglass figure, and the boobs of an underwear model is way too butch,” Jack said. Ryan could almost hear his eye roll through the cell phone.

“That’s what I’m saying!” Ryan said. “That’s what I feel like telling them! Tall is not a synonym for butch, damn it.”

“Just audition with your shirt off next time,” Jack said.

“I honestly feel like that’s where I’m headed,” Ryan said. “I didn’t expect to be getting dream roles overnight, but I can’t even get moderate screen time at this rate.”

“Is there any live theatre out there?” Jack suggested.

“Not really,” Ryan said with a sigh. “I do miss that.”

Jack had paused on the other end of the line.

“You ever think about coming back to Florida?” Jack ventured.

Ryan sighed again.

“I do, Jack,” she said. “I think about it a lot. I see your stupid Facebook pictures and I miss it. Seems like grad work has been good for you.”

“I know Orlando is hardly the heart of American acting but… well, at least there are jobs here, a few different venues. And if all else fails, there’s Disney,” he said.

They both laughed at that. Plenty of actors, both accomplished and failed, had gone on to work at Disney. It was a paycheck, but it was also well known that you’d need to sell your soul and choke on your crushed dreams if you were going to go work for The Mouse.

“You’ve seen all the work I’ve been getting lately,” Jack had said. “And before, I could hardly get within a mile of a theater without being cast as the lecherous old fat dude in everything.”

Ryan had smiled at that. Jack had gotten typecast as an undergrad because he was the only person in the program under 30 who could grow a beard. He’d quickly grown tired of being the father in every play, but at least he’d gotten stage time.

“Anyway,” Jack had said. “You should think on it. The professors still talk about your Tantalus. Hell, someone would probably throw a grant your way if you applied.”

“It’s tempting,” Ryan admitted.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing your butch face around, either,” Jack added.

“Thanks pal.”

 

* * *

 

College was nothing like the movies for Ray--not that she ever expected it to be.

She didn’t join a sorority, only lived in a dorm for a year.

She barely came onto the main campus at all, having satisfied most of her requirements as an undergrad before she ever started applying to college.

No, from the moment she woke up in the morning until the last breath of the day, Ray’s college life was about the theatre department.

Her friends were there. Her classes were there. Her spare time was spent there.

It was bliss, actually.

Especially after high school--one long parade of boring classes and requirements punctuated with one measly play a semester. At her small private school, Ray had been the entire technical theatre department, too--hanging lights, rounding up costumes, painting sets over last year’s set pieces.

Her portfolio, then, had been impressive. The UCF Theatre Department had offered a generous scholarship that took her through all four years. She had to budget, certainly, and she didn’t have a car. Her parents couldn’t offer any financial help--and that was fine too. She understood.

But from her first day arriving in Orlando with a rented car from the panhandle, she had never felt like she’d so belonged at a place.

\---

All of the BFA students spend freshman and sophomore classes together. It’s one of the best and worst parts of the program, and it means that lighting specialty students find themselves in intensive acting classes and acting students find themselves in design classes. By their third years, of course, they were allowed to take upper level courses within their specialties--but the program insisted that if you were truly passionate about theatre, you must learn firsthand about all of the working parts.

Your first year as a BFA student goes like this: entry level classes in a variety of theatre subjects, electives, a metric shit ton of scene shop time, and at least one extracurricular--from working front of house to more scene shop time, to costume shop work. Or, if you were an acting student and you got extremely lucky, you’d get cast in a play.

Nobody sleeps much the first year.

Ray’s scholarship was contingent on her working even more hours on top of her assigned hours--which was more reward than punishment, as far as Ray was concerned. It meant hours spent with the older students, late nights in the scene shop when all of the rest of the beginners had gone home.

She didn’t try to make friends, content to put her music on and her hoodie up and work the long hours doing what she loved. She’d never had a community in high school, hadn’t grown up with anything you could call a circle of friends. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want those connections. She was just too happy to do the work and go back to her dorm room to worry too much about who she met, about going out or forming bonds.

\---

The only thing she didn’t enjoy was acting class.

Sure, she’d bite the bullet ad try it, knowing that it was a requirement to pass the semester, a stepping stone towards more technical theatre classes. But it was fucking embarrassing.

The classes themselves weren’t terrible. In fact, she enjoyed watching the BFA acting students as they crafted improv scenes, admired their ability to pull a scene out of thin air--and more than that, to create something compelling or funny with no script to work from.

It was just the times when she was required to participate that bugged her. All of those eyes on her, watching to see if she’d fail or succeed. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, and she grudgingly admired the actors for their ability to handle that gaze, day in and day out.

In their second week, she’d been forced at random into an improv scene with a stage management student, Michael, and an actor, Gavin.

She’d barely spoken so far, and the two other students had rolled their eyes when they were paired with her. They started the scene ganging up on her immediately, using the fact that they were comfortable in front of an audience to portray her as an outsider.

And although through the course of the scene she wasn’t great at crafting a character or a story arc, her deadpan delivery of jokes she thought of on the spot kept the other two on their toes and the audience laughing.

The scene crashed and burned spectacularly. But it was funny as hell.

“Sorry if we were rude at first,” Michael said, catching her after class. “I feel bad that they even make you guys take acting classes.”

“Yeah,” Ray said, “I feel sorry they force you actors and stage managers to, y’know, do math and write words down.”

Gavin had balked somewhere behind them.

“Hey, I can read and write!”

“Barely,” Michael shot over his shoulder. “You’re fucking hilarious, Ray. We’re headed to the union--you want to grab lunch?”

\---

By the second semester, the three of them were scheduling overlapping hours. They had a nice dynamic, and it seemed like no matter how much time they spent together, they didn’t get tired of one another’s company.

The two boys didn’t expect anything of her and seemed content just to share time with her. She wondered if that was what was at the heart of friendship, and decided not to think too hard about it. They were happy to be her companions and she was happy to have them.

By sophomore year, the three were living together. They rented an apartment just off campus, each one with their own bedroom and bathroom plus a shared living room and kitchen.

It was a great setup for Ray--affordable, plus the guys didn’t mind her tagging along to everything since she didn’t have a car. They were just as obsessed with the theatre as she was, all three of their lives eaten up with it.

\---

Ray heard Ryan’s name for the first time during the summer semester before junior year.

Michael and Gavin were home on break, not taking classes over the summer. Ray had a light load that semester--two electives--and ended up spending most of her days in the scene shop, volunteering help.

She had nothing better to do, no other friends to call on, no other hobby to occupy her time. Television was boring, studying was worse.

Most undergrads went home for the summer, and Ray stood out as the youngest person in the scene shop most days. Griffon, the shop’s manager, was happy to have her. It wasn’t long before she was teaching Ray how to weld, letting the student nap in her second-story office. Griffon admired Ray’s drive almost as much as she admired her ability to fall asleep to the sounds of drills, grinders, and a screeching table saw.

Grad students tended to stay at the university through the summer, unless they were pursuing a semester abroad or had landed a role elsewhere. There was plenty to be learned by just being present in the shop, and Ray soaked it up eagerly.

\---

With Michael and Gavin gone, Ray didn’t expect much social interaction until the fall. But against all odds, in their absence she fell into an easy friendship with Geoff, a grad set designer, after the third week of the summer.

Ray had been riding her bike back to the apartment after a day at the shop when Geoff cruised up. It was impossible to mistake the heavily tattooed young man for anyone else--Ray had seen him around the shop plenty of times, twirling his mustache, making jokes. He had a reputation for drinking hard and openly hitting on anyone--man or woman--who caught his eye. To call him intimidating would be an absolute understatement.

So when Geoff leaned out of the window of a busted pickup truck to talk to Ray, she was caught off guard.

“Hey, throw the bike in the back,” he said. “Where you headed?”

Ray stopped on the sidewalk, bringing her bike to a halt and regarding the man warily.

“It’s ok,” she said. “I’m not going much farther.”

“That’s fucked up, it’s 105 out here,” he said. “I’ve seen you in the shop--I’m not a random kidnapper. Let me give you a ride home.”

Geoff was right. She was sweating through her tank top already, her glasses threatening to fog and her shoulder-length black hair plastered uncomfortably to the back of her neck.

“Seriously, I’m fine,” she said.

“Jesus Christ, don’t turn down air conditioning,” Geoff said. He was blocking traffic on the campus’ two lane road, and five cars back an impatient student started to honk. “See? I’m backing up traffic for you. Throw the bike in and come on.”

And then, turning to face the cars behind them: “Yeah, yeah, fuck you buddy!”

Ray had finally acquiesced, hoisting the light road bike into the flatbed and climbing into the passenger seat as Geoff cursed at the traffic behind them.

“I’m Geoff,” he’d said after a moment, throwing the truck into drive.

“I’m Ray,” she’d replied. “And I know who you are. You did the _Mikato_ set last semester. Fucking showstopper.”

“Thanks,” Geoff said. “Sorry I’ve never introduced myself. With the steady stream of undergrads, I just kind of assume I’ll end up meeting the scene shop kids by their third year. It’s hard to figure out which ones are actors or stage managers or whatever.”

“Look for the ones weeping and bleeding,” Ray suggested. “Safe assumption those are the actors.”

Geoff laughed easily at that, and the two fell into bright conversation. When they pulled up at Ray’s apartment, he’d asked about her transportation situation.

“Do you really ride your bike to campus every day?”

“Yeah,” Ray said. “My roommates are gone for the summer and I don’t have a car.”

“What time do you go in? I work in the shop five days a week and you’re basically on my way.”

\---

Geoff was happy to chauffeur her around for the rest of the summer.

Rides became lunches, lunches became dinners.

And in July, Geoff had finally made a move on her.

It wasn’t surprising, Ray told herself. The guy had a reputation after all. It was probably her proximity more than anything else that made Geoff ask her to stay the night after dinner one night.

“I’m flattered, Geoff,” she said. “And I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me this summer but--”

“But?” Geoff had said.

“I’m, uh. Gay?”

“Aw, fuck, I’m sorry Ray,” Geoff had said, immediately backpedaling, not missing a beat. “Goddamn, what a loss for dudekind. I didn’t mean to skeeve you out, fuck.”

“Seriously, it’s fine--it’s great,” Ray said. “I’m sorry you cooked me dinner and shit--”

“That wasn’t why I made dinner,” Geoff insisted. “I mean, ok, not the only reason why I made dinner. Fuck. Ok, let’s backtrack.”

Ray expected that to be the end of their friendship. Why else would Geoff spend so much time with her, if it wasn’t just an elaborate ploy to get into her pants?

But in reality, the rejection didn’t even cause a hiccup. Geoff was still at her apartment the next day, smiling and joking, ready with a ride to class. They still had lunch together.

Maybe Geoff’s reputation wasn’t fair, Ray thought. He seemed genuinely nice, even when he didn’t stand to gain anything from their friendship.

\---

The first time Geoff mentioned Ryan was in August.

He talked about her in passing one morning, said he'd heard a rumor she would be on campus that day and wondered idly if he would be able to track her down.

“Who’s Ryan?”

“The Amazon of my dreams,” Geoff had said with a smile and a sigh. “She’s an actor I went through undergrad with. She’s like a golden goddess, Ray--wait till you see her.”

Ray rolled his eyes.

“An old girlfriend then?”

“In my dreams, maybe,” Geoff said. “She wouldn’t touch anyone from the theatre department.”

“Probably a wise choice, all things considered.”

“A wise choice that breaks my damn heart,” Geoff said. “If she comes back for the grad program, keep your fingers crossed that she reconsiders.”

 

 


End file.
